


oh brother, won't you lend a hand

by cardinal__sin



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Best Friends, Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Canon, Prosthetics, Shameless Projection, Surgery, Uhm, University, bullshit sci-fi, dubiously researched medical issues, only referenced dw, the author is not sorry for projecting onto vaughn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25685164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinal__sin/pseuds/cardinal__sin
Summary: "Anaesthesia wears off about two hours after Rhys is rolled out of the OR and Vaughn almost cries when Rhys blinks his mismatched eyes at him with a sleepy grin. He immediately reaches for Vaughn with his right and flinches back a second later from the searing pain. Vaughn gives him an apologetic half smile.“Can you sit on my other side?” Rhys whines, his voice raspy, “I wanna hold your hand.”"Or: Rhys has some arm trouble. Vaughn is there to help.
Relationships: Rhys & Vaughn (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	oh brother, won't you lend a hand

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this after a rant about how i hated people portraying Rhys' prosthetics as a conscious decision to turn himself into a better hacker or something. i respect if that's your headcanon but tbh i much prefer keeping a canonically disabled character disabled. anyway. have fun reading!
> 
> title is from a song for the lovers by richard ashcroft. solely because of the pun. yes, i know i'm terrible thank you.

Vaughn is used to Rhys making sounds in the middle of the night. Rhys is a light sleeper and has vivid dreams so him talking or moving around at night is never a surprise. Vaughn doesn’t want to admit it but he’s more concerned when he doesn’t hear anything from Rhys’ bed, he’s so used to the sounds. The swearing and metallic clacking sounds coming from the kitchen at – watch check – 2:13 are less than usual though, and are therefore just as worrying as complete silence.

Vaughn unwraps himself from his four blankets – yay for the barely functioning heating system of their dorm room – and stumbles out into the kitchen, still half-asleep. He blinks against the harsh overhead lighting a couple times until he can finally look without squinting.

Rhys is sitting at the kitchen table in underpants and a thin undershirt almost transparent with sweat. His right arm is resting on the table and he’s got a screwdriver in his left hand. The air is thick with the smell of sweat and vomit and Vaughn only doesn’t gag because his stomach isn’t awake enough to be upset. Rhys looks fucking horrible. His face is pale and drenched in sweat, deep circles sit under his eyes rendering his face almost skull-like and he’s trembling constantly.

Vaughn watches him lift the screwdriver again and try to connect it to a screw in the shoulder socket of his arm, and then fail because of the tremors in his hand. Rhys bangs his left hand on the table and curses quietly, eyes squeezed shut. Probably against nausea.

“Rhys, buddy, what’s wrong?” Vaughn asks, because he cannot even begin to fathom just what his best friend is doing to himself in the middle of the night. He sees that he’s not doing well, though, and wants to help. He always wants to help. Sometimes, with a bit of resentment toward himself, Vaughn wonders whether _wanting to help_ is his only personality trait.

Rhys looks up at him with feverish eyes, pupils blown wide.

“Remember what we joked about during Christmas break with your family?” he asks in a husky voice.

Vaughn remembers. Rhys had eaten like a starving man for a week straight after living off ramen and frozen pizza at university, and Vaughn’s mom had commented on his scrawny figure, saying that he would probably be a good five inches taller by the end of the week. It was hilarious, but now that Vaugh thinks about it with the context of Rhys trying to take off his arm…

“Did you really have another growth spurt?” he asks, because if you spend almost all of your time with someone you barely notice things like that. Rhys nods with a pained smile.

“I mean I was pretty sure I had one more in me, but…it surprised me. And it hurts like a _motherfucker_.”

Back when they had first met during freshman year of college, Rhys had opened up fairly quickly about his prosthetics. Vaughn remembers his relief and gratitude for Rhys sparing him the extremely awkward question of _hey pal, what’s up with your cybernetics?_ The eye, Rhys had said, had been a birth thing. Permanently blind in one eye thanks to the fuckup OB-GYN in charge of his delivery. For a toddler it was no big deal – he always got to be the pirate king during play-pretend in kindergarten thanks to his dope eye patch (his words) and he had managed to apply for some grant and get a decent prosthetic eye during high school.

Now the arm… He had lost his arm and family in an accident when he was ten years old. With everyone gone save for a distant uncle willing to care for him, it had been a struggle at first. Insurance, luckily, covered his first prosthetic arm, and it was perfect for a couple of years – until he hit his first growth spurt. Sudden growths meant that the body would no longer accept the prosthetic, because it was too small and not enough nerve endings connected it with tissue. Over the years it became a routine thing – get an appointment, apply for the new arm, get it changed, stay at the hospital for two weeks and carry on. Vaughn understands, based on Rhys’ explanations that it isn’t a pleasant procedure despite its familiarity and he remembers Rhys’ hope that he would not grow during university and would get to keep his arm for a longer time period. Vaughn’s mom’s cooking had apparently disturbed those hopes, and all of it together is finally enough context for Rhys fucking around in the kitchen in the middle of the night.

“Disconnecting my arm takes away most of the pain because at least the weight is gone,” Rhys grunts, “but the main problem is the shoulder socket. Can’t do anything with it on my own. Needs surgery.”

Vaughn is about to suggest painkillers, but he notices the half-empty bottle next to the sink which still has traces of Rhys’ vomit in it. That is not an option, then. It makes sense, the body producing fever and sickness as it fights against the now too-small arm and its improper fit.

Rhys lifts the screwdriver again and promptly drops it. He stares at his trembling hand with a disapproving look, and Vaughn can see he’s about two seconds away from breaking down. He picks up the screwdriver and goes to stand on Rhys’ right.

“Tell me what to do,” he murmurs, “let me help.”

Rhys gives him an exhausted, yet grateful smile.

“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” he says through gritted teeth, “unscrew the screws and disconnect the cables. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

Vaughn would like to argue that the task at hand is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult. He has to stop a couple times to wipe his forehead and/or hands to make sure his grip is steady and no sweat drips into his eyes as he works. He tries not to flinch every time Rhys cries out in pain. The cables connecting the arm to the socket are basically artificial nerves and tampering with them obviously hurts.

After a good twenty minutes, the arm is finally off and Rhys leans back in his chair with a relieved sigh. Vaughn tries to rationalize the sight of Rhys’ arm in his hands and Rhys on a chair, separated from it, and fails. He decides to deal with the absurdity of it later.

“Oh man,” Rhys whimpers, “that’s better, oh my god…”

Vaughn remembers that Rhys exists and needs to be taken care of and reboots his brain and body to function properly once again. He puts the arm on the table and goes to get Rhys a wet towel to cool down his face and a tall glass of room temperature water. _Careful_ , he reminds Rhys, not wanting him to throw up again.

“Can you, uh,” Vaughn pauses, looking for words, “book an appointment for surgery? Like as soon as possible?”

Rhys nods and asks for his laptop, which Vaughn brings him because he’s nice like that. They move to the (tiny, shitty) couch and Vaughn lets Rhys curl up against him despite all the sweat and grossness because Rhys must be in a lot of pain and probably needs as much comfort as he can get. They manage to get an appointment for the late morning through some miracle and Vaughn is ready to go back to bed when Rhys looks up at him with a cheeky smile and asks if he wants to help him pick a new arm.

They end up browsing instead of sleeping, and Vaughn only has mild regrets. Like this, he manages to talk Rhys out of dumb and expensive decisions like the arm with the built-in speakers and mood lighting or the one that can store two cans of beer in the bicep which is just idiotic, and definitely not _perfect_ as Rhys insists.

The final decision is a robust, yellow-and-black arm Vaughn is convinced Rhys only likes because it’s Hyperion issue and fits the colour scheme of the company as well. The specs are convincing, though, especially with the built-in _thingo_ in the palm that seems to be halfway between a screen projector and the gauntlet piece of that old cartoon character, Iron Man. Rhys is already making plans of hacking into it so they can watch movies projected from his hand.

Vaughn allows himself to take a moment and just relax, let out a deep breath he feels like he’s been holding for hours. It’s hard not to worry for Rhys, no matter how much he insists he’s fine, because to him, this is new and scary and he fears for his best friend. They eventually fall asleep there on the couch, a gross, uncomfortable, sweaty tangle of limbs. It’s perfect.

* * *

Surgery goes well and Vaughn is allowed to stay at Rhys’ bedside even though the nurses clearly are less than overjoyed about it and Rhys is still under sedation anyway. It doesn’t matter. Vaughn is kind of doing this for himself, to calm his frantically beating heart and his head full of dark thoughts. He sits with Rhys, looking at the new arm and the bandages around his upper body, watching his chest rise and fall with slow, steady breaths. He needs to keep reminding himself that Rhys is fine, but he manages, and that’s the important part.

Anaesthesia wears off about two hours after Rhys is rolled out of the OR and Vaughn almost cries when Rhys blinks his mismatched eyes at him with a sleepy grin. He immediately reaches for Vaughn with his right and flinches back a second later from the searing pain. Vaughn gives him an apologetic half smile.

“Can you sit on my other side?” Rhys whines, his voice raspy, “I wanna hold your hand.”

Vaughn, never one to deny his constantly touch-starved friend any physical affection he requests, hauls his chair to the other side of Rhys’ bed with a put-upon sigh and goes to hold Rhys’ left. Rhys smiles at him and closes his eyes again. The IV drip must be giving him hella painkillers to help him adjust to his new arm.

“Take a nap?” Vaughn suggests, but Rhys is already fast asleep.

* * *

“Are you ready?” Rhys yells to Vaughn from their couch. Vaughn almost drops his bowl of popcorn in his haste to get back to his best friend, sprawling on the shitty piece of furniture with an impatient smile.

The surgery was about a month ago and just as Rhys had predicted it was all totally fine, and Rhys’ recovery went as well as physically possible. There had been minor hiccups, like Rhys being so tired after studying that he almost forgot the shower protection for his arm and nearly electrocuted himself and, like, most of the dorm’s residents by proxy.

Vaughn takes in Rhys’ excited face and sits down next to him. It’s movie night, and Rhys insisted on watching the movie projected from his new arm. Vaughn considers asking Rhys again (he’s asked about five times already) if he’s sure his arm won’t get tired – “it’s a robot arm, Vaughn, it _can’t_ get tired!” – and decides against it, instead lets Rhys know he can start the movie.

Do they pay attention to it? Not really. They actually stop watching after twenty minutes to order pizza on the new, fancy ECHO display, then call Rhys’ friend Yvette, then take a selfie with Rhys’ old arm because it’s a hilarious concept. Rhys posts the photo of Vaughn holding Rhys’ detached arm on social media with the caption _“Vaughn asked me to lend him a hand with his assignment. I don’t know why he looks so shocked :D”_

Life goes back to normal.

**Author's Note:**

> this was it! i hope you liked it :) if there's something i need to tag, inaccuracies you want to point out or just plain old typos or grammar, leave a comment :)  
> kudos and comments are always appreciated, i love getting feedback on my stories! find me on tumblr, instagram and twitter at @cardinalxsin and feel free to yell at me there too :)


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